Careers in Natural Resources Summit:
Many of you were able to attend the fourth Careers in Natural Resources Summit held on February 18th at the US Forest Service Regional Office in Golden. We were fortunate to have the Regional Forester Dan Jirón welcome the group and share how the US Forest Service is supporting our efforts. The Summit also provided an update about the Initiative and a preview of the Initiative's new natural resource jobs website - www.GetOutdoorsColorado.org/Job-Center - a collaboration between the Initiative and Get Outdoors Colorado. Participants also discussed the progress of two additional projects aimed at supporting the Initiative's goals including a Career Exploration Week and a Careers in Natural Resources Manual. Finally, we discussed future funding opportunities and needs including the collection of baseline data about careers in natural resources along with the development of evaluation tools to measure the collective impact of the Initiative. The next Summit is set for fall 2014.
Career Fair:
Last fall the Career Fair Committee focused on attending existing 8th grade career fairs in the Denver-Metro area in order to get the word out about careers in natural resources to a broad audience. This winter/spring, the Committee is planning a "Careers in Natural Resources Exploration Week" in which students will visit different natural resources organizations, agencies and higher education institutions, hear what their staff do, and engage in experiential activities that relate to different careers. The exploration week is scheduled for June 9-13th. The next Career Fair Committee meeting will be Thursday, March 27th from 1:00-3:00 at the CAEE Office in Golden at which time the schedule will be finalized and recruitment and evaluation discussed.
Career Guide:
With the help of CYCA staff and the Career Guide Committee, we have finished a very rough draft of the Career Guide. The Guide contains an introduction, information about the full scope of careers in natural resources, discussion of the federal hiring process and discussion of the state and local job hiring processes. In the coming weeks, I will be asking members of the Career Guide Committee and other experts to review relevant sections of the Guide. We will also be working on inserting diagrams and other visuals into the Guide as well as formatting its overall layout.
Online Portal:
The online portal, now called the Get Outdoors Colorado Job Center website, has officially launched! You can view the new website atwww.getoutdoorscolorado.org/Job-Center. As you will see, the new website contains a job search function, career planning resources, government agency job links and higher education opportunities for job seekers, a page of resources for employers, and information about the Careers in Natural Resources Initiative. In partnership with the Colorado Parks and Recreation Association, who manages the Get Outdoors Colorado website, we hosted four Webinars to engage and train partners about how to post jobs to the new website. We also created an informational flyer for partners about how to post a job and a postcard to distribute to job seekers about what the site offers. Our goal is to make this the premier website to post and search for careers in natural resources. Look for a follow-up email from me in the coming weeks with these resources and how you can help us spread the word about the new site.
A big thank you to all of you who have been able to participate on these committees and help us make decisions that move us forward in our goals! We are always looking for more participation from the group, so please let me know if you would like to join the discussions of any of these three efforts.